Federal surveys also show that rates of serious mental illness are rising nationally, with the sharpest increase among people 18 to 25, who are also the most likely to use cannabis. The surveys and hospital data cannot prove that marijuana has caused a population-wide increase in psychosis, but they do offer intriguing evidence. […]

Many people are arrested for marijuana possession, but very few end up imprisoned. […] But advocacy groups don’t view decriminalization as an acceptable compromise. […]

Worse — because marijuana can cause paranoia and psychosis, and those conditions are closely linked to violence — it appears to lead to an increase in violent crime. Before recreational legalization began in 2014, advocates promised that it would reduce violent crime. But the first four states to legalize — Alaska, Colorado, Oregon and Washington — have seen sharp increases in murders and aggravated assaults since 2014, according to reports from the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Police reports and news articles show a clear link to cannabis in many cases. […]

As Americans consider making marijuana a legal drug, it would be wise to remember the choices that fueled the devastating opioid epidemic. Decades ago, many of the same people pressing for marijuana legalization argued that the risks of opioid addiction could be easily managed.

A half-million deaths later, we have learned how wrong they were.

Marijuana’s risks are different from opioids’, but they are no less real. Let’s remember that hard truth as we listen to promises that allowing the use of this drug will do no harm.

Wow.

Am I getting out of touch? I don’t remember hearing about this guy, and yet apparently he’s writing a book: “Tell Your Children: The Truth About Marijuana, Mental Illness, and Violence.”

58 comments to A fossil shows up on the pages of the New York Times

Except for two non-fiction books, Alex Berenson writes spy novels. Pot is really out of his genre, as well as his grip on reality.

Jacqueline Basha Berenson, MD, his wife, is a forensic psychiatrist and researcher at Columbia University. She may be the inspiration for Alex’s hit piece on cannabis, and that may be due to what appears to be an OD death of her brother, Joseph Basha, in Hong Kong in 2011:

28 December, 2011 — Distraught relatives were last night trying to come to terms with the death of University of Hong Kong student Joseph ‘Joey’ Basha after it emerged that his body was found slumped in a public toilet near his home, 48 hours before he was reported missing.

Friends and family were informed of his death only yesterday – four days after they told police Basha was missing and six days after his body was found in Yau Ma Tei, a 20-minute walk from his flat in Jordan.

Basha’s sister Jacqueline Berenson, a forensic psychiatrist, and her husband, Alex Berenson, a novelist and former New York Times journalist, arrived from New York on Monday night with plans to search the city’s hospitals.

Alex Berenson is the named author, but that’s likely due to his books being best sellers, not because he’s a drug expert.

So we end up with a familiar scene. Jacky, a professional psychiatrist, but certainly not a molecular psychiatrist, needs a scapegoat to blame for her brother’s OD death, and like hundreds of others have done, she blames marijuana because it’s been called a gateway drug.

Columbia University has been the stomping ground for quack psychiatrists such as Dr Robert DuPont, and his trusty sidekick Kevin Sabet. The caliber of the propaganda certainly sounds as if it came from Kevin, so a connection may exist.

As for Yale graduate and author Alex Berenson, based on his vitae, I would color him CIA.

Again, how the hell does someone gateway to what hadn’t been invented or discovered? They can’t. Prohibition is the only causal connection. Reefer Mad Gossip only prevents citizens from getting medicinal relief and a less inebriating harmful way to relax and reduce stress. Get the fuck over it Raspberry!

Cannabis Timeline – Kikoko
Cannabis cultivation goes back some 12,000 years,
making it one of humanity’s oldest crops. Archaeological finds from another pre-Columbian people known as the Mound Builders, who lived in the Great Lakes and Mississippi River regions of North America between 3000 BCE and the 16th century, show evidence of the cannabis plant being used for textiles, as medicine and in rituals.

Endocannabinoid System
The endocannabinoid system could be extremely important in preventing, managing, or even treating certain chronic conditions.

My mum’s brother in law used to be a Royal Hong Kong Police and Hong Kong Police Officer until 2012 when he retired. For those who don’t, I was brought up in Hong Kong when it was a British colony until 1997 but immigrated to New Zealand in 1994 with my parents to New Zealand. The Hong Kong Police themselves are corrupt, you know sometimes after the Cannabis raids when they take the confiscated Cannabis back to the Police Station, they help themselves to some of it.

The evident tradition of the NYT’s willful ignorance about illicit substances, why they were made so, and the consequences of keeping them so has seemingly remained intact. The late Abe Rosenthal, the Executive Editor of the NYT from 1977 to 1988 penned many of the Times articles excoriating cannabis over the decades prior to his demise, is no doubt smiling in Hell.

Notice the craven collusion between one of the top members of the 4th Estate and the very bureaucrat he’s supposed to keep an eagle eye on while keeping an ethical distance from.

(Notice also the willingness to be an accessory to de factosocial engineering of the public to further government aims and policies, i.e., WRT altering the public’s perception of tobacco usage.)

This pattern of traditional media enabling, aiding and abetting of government policies regarding illicit substances is but a small part of that corrosive collusion (like that which led to newsreaders cheerleading government propaganda to gin up support for the Middle Eastern Wars) that is the hallmark of traditional media outlets, and is largely why I get my news from alternative media sources, and have since 2002-2003.

Caffeine, a popular but legal recreational street drug, has been discovered to have both mental and physical therapeutic benefits. Sergi Ferré, Manuel Díaz-Ríos, John D. Salamone, and Rui Daniel Prediger, published their findings in the Journal of Caffeine and Adenosine Research:

7 Dec 2018 –Preclinical evidence is reviewed which indicates that caffeine and selective A2AR antagonists could be used to treat the motivational symptoms of depression as well as cognitive and emotional impairments in attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. In addition, new research suggests that the A1R-D1R heteromer, which modulates the excitability of the spinal motoneuron, could be targeted by A1R antagonists to therapeutic effect in spinal cord injury. […]

Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Scott Gottlieb tweeted, “#FDA treats products containing cannabis or cannabis-derived compounds as we do any other FDA-regulated products. These products are subject to the same authorities and requirements as FDA-regulated products containing any other substance.”https://t.co/Z22yKbSWZT

This video on the use of Rick Simpson Oil combined with chemotherapy for Stage IV pancreatic cancer is pretty awesome.

I’ve been looking at the work of Israeli scientist, David Meiri, of the Laboratory of Cancer Biology and Cannabinoid Research. He’s at the Israeli version of MIT.

Meiri has lab equipment that allows him to identify cannabinoids and terpenes and he uses his lab to study the 36 available cannabis flowers prescribed by doctors in Israel.

In at least one case (this is in vitro, i.e., Petri dish) he found a chemovar killed cancer when it was an ethanol-based extraction but NOT when it was the same thing in CO2 extraction (e.g., like Epidiolex or Sativex). He also found that sometimes the acidic form worked against the cancer and the decarboxylated version did not, and visa versa.

He found that chemovars that worked against breast and ovarian cancers didn’t touch prostate cancer. He found that chemovars that helped kill prostate cancer didn’t touch other types.

Cannabis and cancer is an extremely complex subject. The odds that any individual patient gets matched with the best cannabis genetics is totally random at this point. Success stories are dependent on luck. However, with a really, really well-stocked dispensary patients have more options and a better chance to find the right chemovar(s).

He studied a chemovar known to help with epileptic seizures that suddenly stopped working. He found that clones from the same mother plant, planted at the same time and conditions at different locations produced radically different cannabinoid and terpene profiles. In this case, the grower claimed identical THC/CBD ratios in the plant that had quit working for the epileptic patient. Identical THC/CBD ratios but widely varying ratios of other cannabinoids and terpenes.

With just four clones from the same mother he found that for example THCV a cannabinoid helpful for diabetes, that there were high levels of THCV, medium levels, low levels and zero THCV.

David has a 90-minute video you can find at the Society of Cannabis Clinician’s website video library. It’s pretty cool stuff and worth checking out if you have the time. If you do, there’s also a cool video by PhD Christina Sanchez of Spain on cancer I’d recommend as well.

Tobacco just upstaged marijuana as the alleged gateway to harder drugs:

9 Jan 2019 — Tobacco is a known risk factor for the misuse of prescription opioids. In addition, concurrent use of opioids and sedative-hypnotics is a risk factor for opioid overdose or addiction. In an American Journal on Addictions study, tobacco users were more likely to receive prescriptions for opioid analgesics with muscle relaxants and/or benzodiazepines than people who did not use tobacco. […]

Alex Berenson’s book, Tell Your Children: The Truth About Marijuana, Mental Illness, and Violence, hit the shelves today. It’s worse than anyone imagined. His deceased brother-in-law, Joey Basha, isn’t mentioned. However, Berenson does give credit to his wife for her inspiration to write the book:

…this book would not have been possible without my wife, Dr. Jacqueline Berenson. And I don’t mean that in the usual pro forma “This wouldn’t haven’t been possible without my spouse” way. Jackie’s work as a forensic psychiatrist gives her a unique perspective on the violence that marijuana causes. Her understanding of the issue led me down the path to this book. I hope I’ve done it—and her—justice. [Kindle 231]

Yes, violence, that’s what the man said. Using post hoc arguments he shows marijuana causes people to become violent—citing the most discredited pot propaganda in existence.

The violence he associates with schizophrenics and the mentally ill who smoke marijuana, and who afterwards commit violent, horrible crimes, such as mass murder. Other cannabis violence he attributes to dealer ripoffs in black market transactions. None of it proves a direct, organic link exists between marijuana and violence, but by listing many dubious connections, he infers it.

Berenson takes quotes from prosecutors and police officers. He adopts every myth that comes along that supports his thesis, for instance, he talks about increases in cannabis purity resulting in a more dangerous product.

One of the researchers Berenson discusses includes Robin Murray, a Scottish psychiatrist who set out with others to prove marijuana causes violence. Almost every page of Berenson’s book contains feeble attempts to revive discredited presumptions about pot. Here Alex quotes Dr Nora Volkow in his defense:

The opioid crisis has also deflected attention from the new [marijuana] research. For health and law enforcement agencies, the effects of rising marijuana use are a slow-motion problem. The 70,000 annual drug overdose deaths are an immediate emergency. “The size and scope of the opioid crisis has distracted people,” says Dr. Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

But the legalization lobby—and its supporters in the media—sure haven’t helped. In 2011, a 22-year-old named Jared Lee Loughner shot Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords in Tucson, Arizona, wounding her and killing six other people.

Loughner was mentally ill and had frequently smoked. But when a commentator named David Frum raised the potential link, he was roundly mocked. The Atlantic magazine called Frum’s theory one of the “5 Strangest Explanations for Jared Loughner’s Attack,” along with suggestions that heavy metal songs might be responsible.

The reaction to Loughner’s case is the rule, not the exception. Marijuana’s advocates have the money, the cultural gatekeepers, and the elite media. The Washington Post—not High Times, the Washington Post—runs headlines such as “Marijuana May Be Even Safer Than Previously Thought, Researchers Say” and “11 Charts That Show Marijuana Has Truly Gone Mainstream.” Because everybody knows that if you smoke too much, you just eat Doritos until you fall asleep. Everybody knows Reefer Madness is a joke. Cops just want excuses to put black people in jail. And everybody knows marijuana should be legal. […] [Kindle 227-246]

Berenson even defends Harry Anslinger’s attitudes toward marijuana:

The marijuana lobby views Anslinger as a racist anti-cannabis fanatic who exaggerated the drug’s dangers to convince Congress to prohibit it.

They’re partly right. Anslinger was openly racist, and marijuana’s association with immigrants from Mexico undoubtedly fueled the drive for prohibition. Yet Mexico itself criminalized marijuana seventeen years before the United States, in 1920, after Mexican lawmakers became convinced the drug caused mental illness and violence.

Were those lawmakers motivated by anti-Hispanic prejudice too? Advocates for legalization have been too busy mocking Anslinger to wonder if he might be right. Because the “delirious rage” he describes sounds a lot like psychosis. And the “heinous crime” he mentions is happening far more often than anyone understands. […]

Alex Berenson’s book is little more than a feeble attempt to revive reefer madness, and maybe make some money at the same time. He needn’t bother. He and his wife exhibit enough madness to fulfill the needs of every prohibitionist on the planet.

MARIJUANA REVOLUTION by John Sinclairhttp://luminist.org/archives/marijuana.htm
It might seem strange to a lot of people to spend so much time and energy — and so many pages — on the subject of marijuana, which is after all only an innocuous naturally-occurring weed that people smoke to get high. But what’s even stranger is that an increasingly frightening number of people are being ordered to spend inconsiderable amounts of time (9½ to 10 years in my case) in penitentiaries and prisons simply for smoking this weed in America these days. People who do smoke marijuana are probably pretty much aware of the things I want to say in this article, but for those who can’t understand what all the commotion is about, maybe my remarks will be helpful.

It just doesn’t seem to make any sense to have so many people smoking and praising this weird little weed marijuana, and it makes even less sense to see these people attacked so viciously by the purveyors of “law and order.” But once some basic facts concerning marijuana use and marijuana repression are established, it seems to me that the whole issue will become much clearer, and that we can finally move to rectify the situation which is now so confusing.

Going to class wiped out on weed really makes you realize how ridiculous the whole Western system of “education” really is, how little it has to do with learning anything of value, and how destructive of native intelligence, curiosity and creativity it is. After a few months of this contradictory strain I dropped out of school for almost a year to immerse myself in Black ghetto life, which I approached from a stupid romantic beatnik viewpoint which held that there was where people really lived and fulfilled themselves. It wasn’t like that though, and it didn’t take me long to find out how fucked up America really is at its core, how pervasive and evil racism and industrial exploitation are in this country.

“Reefer makes darkies think they’re as good as white men.”~ Harry J. Anslinger
(1892-1975) Assistant Prohibition Commissioner in the Bureau of Prohibition, first Commissioner of the Treasury Department’s Federal Bureau of Narcotics (FBN) (1930-1962, 32 years), US Representative to the United Nations Narcotics Commission

There is no link between psychosis and cannabis.https://t.co/V4TeaibGFC
One of the hardest hitting arguments against cannabis is that it ‘causes psychosis’. It doesn’t – researchers have been looking for links for nearly 90 years and has found no link at all.

When you see some mad politician, high on power and money, ranting like a lunatic that ‘cannabis causes psychosis’, remember this article and suggest kindly he sees a psychiatrist about his megalomania and paranoid delusions. Let’s now go into a little depth.

Good write-up by Murray, who appears to be honest about his topic. His information indicates anyone with schizophrenia is likely to have an adverse reaction to marijuana, or any other psychotropic substance, as their brains are likely to process the chemicals differently. The effect can be tested and the numbers determined by research. It doesn’t imply cannabis causes schizophrenia, however. Psychosis remains little understood, but progress is being made every day.

Recently, today in fact, Robert Yolken, M.D. and researchers at Johns Hopkins revealed a link between Epstein-Barr virus (EBV, herpes, mononucleosis, mono, etc.) and schizophrenia. They found that people with schizophrenia were 1.7 to 2.3 times more likely to have increased levels of some EBV antibodies compared to non-schizophrenics.

None of the anecdotal stories in Alex Berenson’s book implicate mono with schizophrenia. Obviously, no one could know of the mono link at the time.

I talked to a Cannabis Medical Card doctor about Ganja and Schizophrenia. He was under the impression it was bad and increased symptoms. I ask him why some patients find relief and if it might be the various strains. That Indica may prove better than Sativa and without a menu of choices many in outlawed states have to use what is available. Plus the fact that NO doctor in the US has ever sat in an ECS classroom in Med School. It is also a rather new phenomina since nothing I know of has been said in 12,000 years of use. Before prohibition made it worthy of inclusion.

I talked to a Cannabis Medical Card doctor about Ganja and Schizophrenia. He was under the impression it was bad and increased symptoms. I ask him why some patients find relief and if it might be the various strains. That Indica may prove better than Sativa and without a menu of choices many in outlawed states have to use what is available. Plus the fact that NO doctor in the US has ever sat in an ECS classroom in Med School. It is also a rather new phenomena since nothing I know of has been said in 12,000 years of use. Before prohibition made it worthy of inclusion.

Facebook is addictive in the same way former Drug Czar Bill Bennett is addicted to gambling. That’s according to research from Michigan State University by Dar Meshi and colleagues from Australia:

10-Jan-2019 — …Dar Meshi and his co-authors had 71 participants take a survey that measured their psychological dependence on Facebook, similar to addiction. Questions on the survey asked about users’ preoccupation with the platform, their feelings when unable to use it, attempts to quit and the impact that Facebook has had on their job or studies.

The researchers then had the participants do the Iowa Gambling Task, a common exercise used by psychologists to measure decision-making. To successfully complete the task, users identify outcome patterns in decks of cards to choose the best possible deck.

Meshi and his colleagues found that by the end of the gambling task, the worse people performed by choosing from bad decks, the more excessive their social media use. The better they did in the task, the less their social media use. This result is complementary to results with substance abusers. People who abuse opioids, cocaine, methamphetamine, among others – have similar outcomes on the Iowa Gambling Task, thus showing the same deficiency in decision-making.

“With so many people around the world using social media, it’s critical for us to understand its use,” Meshi said. “I believe that social media has tremendous benefits for individuals, but there’s also a dark side when people can’t pull themselves away. We need to better understand this drive so we can determine if excessive social media use should be considered an addiction.” […]

A deficiency in decision making certainly fits with what we know about Bill Bennett. It’s critical that we now have a test for the problem that could prevent people such as Bennett from ever assuming a position in government, or the dark side.

Kevin Sabet and Alex Berenson will want to extend Dr Meshi’s findings to establish that Facebook usage by young people causes them to develop schizophrenia and commit violent crimes. Data shouldn’t be hard to cherry pick.

☛ While, like alcohol and tobacco, there are associations with cannabis use and psychosis, causation has not been established. However, even IF we did assume that cannabis is an independent cause of psychosis, then it so rarely does that you would have to stop thousands from using it to prevent just one case::

☛ “IF we assume that cannabis use plays a causal role in psychosis, it will be difficult to reduce psychosis incidence by preventing cannabis uptake in the whole population: an estimated 4,700 young men in the United Kingdom aged 20–24 years would have to be dissuaded from smoking cannabis to prevent one case of schizophrenia” [Hall 2014]

☛ If cannabis was a significant cause of psychosis, then varying rates of cannabis usage over time in the U.S. and other countries should have a corresponding change in rates of psychosis in those countries, but they have not despite decades of increased use by millions:

☛ “The most parsimonious explanation of the results reported here are that the schizophrenia/psychoses data presented here are valid and the causal models linking cannabis with schizophrenia/psychoses are not supported by this study.” [Frisher et al. 2009]

☛ “There was a steep rise in the prevalence of cannabis use in Australia over the past 30 years and a corresponding decrease in the age of initiation of cannabis use. There was no evidence of a significant increase in the incidence of schizophrenia over the past 30 years”

☛ “Cannabis use does not appear to be causally related to the incidence of schizophrenia…” [Degenhardt et al. 2003]

☛ “The current data do not support low to moderate lifetime cannabis use to be a major contributor to psychosis or poor social and role

… “Berenson goes to some lengths to claim that he is not a propagandist and Tell Your Children should not be compared to Reefer Madness (forget for a moment that the original title for the film was literally Tell Your Children). But there is no reason we should give Berenson the benefit of the doubt when he cherry picks and manipulates data. Our society has been deeply damaged by pot fearmongerers like Berenson, from the impacts on criminal justice to the delayed FDA-approved therapies that can clearly help people to just regular folks being denied a safe buzz from pot.

I believe that legalization is the only sensible way to treat pot, but how exactly we legalize and regulate is a complicated question. We need people to be critical about our policy decisions, and we need scientists to keep studying what happens when we smoke pot (and if they keep looking, they will likely keep finding new benefits). But people like Berenson who merely have a book to sell and don’t care who they damage in the process don’t deserve to be listened to. And the media blitz surrounding Berenson’s book clearly shows how much East Coast media circles need to learn about pot.”

The cerebellum is the center for the brain’s reward and preference circuitry. Based on mouse studies, the new discovery points to inherent brain defects rather than cannabis as an initiator of psychoses:

17-Jan-2019 — Researchers found a direct neural connection from the cerebellum to the ventral tegmental area (VTA) of the brain, which is an area long known to be involved in reward processing and encoding. These findings, published in Science, demonstrate for the first time that the brain’s cerebellum plays a role in controlling reward and social preference behavior, and sheds new light on the brain circuits critical to the affective and social dysfunction seen across multiple psychiatric disorders. […]

…abnormalities in the cerebellum have been linked to autism, schizophrenia, and substance use disorders, and brain activation in the cerebellum has been linked to motivation, social and emotional behaviors, and reward learning, each of which can be disrupted in psychiatric disorders. […]

The results of this study suggest a potentially major–and previously unrecognized–role for the cerebellum in the creation and control of reward and social preference behaviors. Although there is much left to explore, the identification of this direct neural pathway may help explain the role of this circuit in disorders that involve reward-related and social-processing systems, such as addiction, autism, and schizophrenia, and may point to future targets for intervention and symptom management. […]

In future studies, the researchers plan to test whether the cerebellum-VTA pathway can be manipulated, using drugs or optogenetics, to treat addiction and prevent relapse after treatment.

“Cerebellar abnormalities are also linked to a number of other mental disorders such as schizophrenia,” said Dr. Khodakhah. “We want to find out whether this pathway also plays a role in those disorders.”

Unlike cannabis/psychosis studies, the shambling zombie of psychological research, that discovery could be incredibly significant, and lead to new therapies. At the very least, provides a means of understanding the reward systems that help maintain the behaviors we see in patients.
Unlike cannabis studies, which continue to only find weak correlations, this has implications for treatment.

Cannabidiol-induced apoptosis is mediated by activation of Noxa in human colorectal cancer cellshttps://t.co/L1iMzCahcK
These results suggest that that CBD has important implications for the potential treatment of human CRC.

Real life Experience of Medical Cannabis Treatment in Autism: Analysis of Safety and Efficacyhttps://t.co/8DPbRjjxDO

Author Alex Berenson lists the names of the medical and science professionals he conferred with to write his book. Uncharitably, he tells his readers they can look up their information and details on the researchers and their work if they’re interested. So I did. Below are the results.

It’s clear why Mr. Berenson didn’t include details about the professionals he lists. He cites people whose research in most cases is old, inconclusive, irrelevant, or presumptuous. Most of the researchers’ agendas are anti-cannabis, while calling for more research to tackle the many unknowns not acknowledged. In the end, Berenson manages to prove that even by cherry picking researchers it doesn’t work to make his case against cannabis.

Alex Berenson: “Psychiatrists, researchers, and scientists who shared their knowledge— in person, over the phone, or via email…”— included:

Jacob Ballon, researcher, says cannabis psychosis may be due to a genetically altered CB1 receptor, Schizophrenia and cannabis: “One particular genotype has been most clearly linked to people with disorganized type of schizophrenia; a type more characterized by inability to maintain activities of daily living than with positive/psychotic symptoms. This variation has also been seen in people with the amotivational syndrome due to marijuana but not with psychosis due to amphetamine (speed, etc.) or other drug use. However, this genetic variation is merely an association and not yet determined to actually be a testable risk factor for schizophrenia. The role of cannabinoids will be the subject of much further research over the upcoming years.”

Tom Freeman, Senior academic Fellow, King’s College London, investigates marijuana and its comorbidity with psychosis, Treatment of cannabis related problems, wherein he presumes without evidence that psychosis is one of the problems.

Melanie Rylander, University of Colorado Denver – Anschutz Medical Campus Department, Associate Program Director, Psychiatry Residency, Assistant Professor. The association of cannabis use on inpatient psychiatric hospital outcomes. Conclusion: “Patients presenting with psychotic symptoms and cannabis use require shorter inpatient psychiatric hospitalizations. This study is the first to quantify this observation and highlights the need for future clinical decision-making tools that would ideally correlate cannabis use with the degree of potential need for expensive and scarce mental health resources, such as psychiatric hospitalization.”

Phil Silva, New Zealand, founder of the world-famous Dunedin study. … The study says that cannabis use under 18 is a “huge” risk.

Christian Thurstone, MD: named an Advocate for Action by the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy in October 2012 for his “outstanding leadership in promoting an evidence-based approach to youth substance use and addiction.” Thurstone, an associate professor of psychiatry at the University of Colorado School of Medicine, is the director of one of Colorado’s largest youth substance-abuse treatment clinics.

Jim van Os, Dutch professor of Psychiatric Epidemiology and Public Mental Health at Utrecht University Medical Centre, the Netherlands, who wrote: “Schizophrenia” does not exist

Nora Volkow, Director of the NIDA, wants to win the Nobel Prize for her work on dopamine channels as the singular alleged cause for drug addiction—it’s not.

The prohibs count upon the general ignorance of the public regarding scientific research on cannabis, knowing that few of the public have the time or inclination to fully research the sources the prohibs claim as vindicating their positions.

And so, they often engage in editorial sleight-of-hand, claiming studies proven inaccurate (like the Zhang study) by later ones (like the Tashkin study) as being valid, knowingly and with intent to deceive. Which is, in turn, part-and-parcel with their adherence to their Straussian ‘noble lie’ concept regarding ‘protecting youth from drugs by any means necessary’, itself a cornerstone of anti-drugs propaganda.

With such a rationale, prohibs can excuse themselves for any amount of mendacity they feel is necessary to further their ‘noble’ cause, And in doing so, they expose their true natures. (“We ought to kill all the druggies!” is a sentiment often expressed in numerous comment sections on the Webpages catering to such people.) No wonder so many of them would have made good commissars in the old Soviet Union; they’ve certainly got the right attitude for the job.

☛ Judge ‘increasingly doubtful’ of feds’
lawsuit against hemp farmhttps://t.co/KTOfadudva
But after U.S. Attorney Mike Stuart made a motion seeking to test the hemp, Chambers delayed his lifting of the injunction to give defendants a chance to respond to Stuart’s request.

BudTrader.com , “largest online cannabis marketplace” and has been dubbed the “Craigslist of weed,” will offer free medical marijuana to government workers who can’t pay because of the shutdown.https://t.co/u61GLmnDHi

On MLK day Joe Biden apologized for promoting the drug war while a senator. He blames his mistake on the “experts” who made up ill-conceived, racist, and bigoted lies about drugs, particularly crack cocaine.

Perhaps better than an apology, Mr. Biden might want to call for holding those people accountable who lied to not only him, but to Congress and American citizens. Meanwhile, the CSA law that allows so-called experts to lie about drugs still exists.

As an aside, I was pleased to see that Berenson’s book, the current version of Reefer Madness… Tell Your Children, is no longer showing as the #1 Best Seller at Amazon. It’s now the Best Selling New Release. Prohibs are loving the book.

Starting at 3:30: “… I’m not a prohibitionist … I think full national legalization is a mistake … it creates a business community that promotes use of the drug … prohibition is a meaningless term.” — Alex Berenson.

What about prohib, prohibitch, or prohibidiot? Are those meaningless terms as well?

As had been noted here for a very long time, as the political support for prohibition wanes thanks to demographics, the more demonstrably irrational the prohibs will become. As their position becomes more untenable, the prohibs will let out of their ideological attics the very worst examples of their kind, what I call the ‘crazy uncles’.

Right on cue, here’s Mr. Berenson, seemingly clueless as to the historical connotation of his book’s subtitle and its connection to failed propaganda, spouting canards as facts and practically daring his opposition to call him out on it…when in fact, science has already settled the matter. Like I said, clueless.

Mr. Berenson’s (and by derivation, all the prohibs) problem is exactly the same as that of the traditional media upon which he is now reliant upon to spread his disinformation: they’ve lied too many times and only the mentally retarded (yes, I’ll use that word) would believe him or them.

Sad to see putative adults behave in such a fashion, but there it is, for all the world to see. What the prohibs used to keep in the attic for fear their equivalent of Brandeis’s …’men of zeal, without understanding’ would turn off the public thanks to their near-wide-eyed, foam-flecked antics has finally been loosed from their confinement, out of sheer desperation. It’s only a matter of time before they say something or do something so preposterous that everyone laughs at them, and that laughter will be the end of them.

I emailed Alex Berenson telling him how stupid and naive he is. I literally told him when it comes to serious illness like cancer, diabetes, obesity and etc. Many people use Cannabis Oil for serious healing or even the cure effect. I even gave him the following quote from the PDF called the Rick Simpson Protocol:

What is smoked marijuana good for from a medical point of view?

From a medical point of view, smoking cannabis hemp has limited medical value when compared to ingesting the oil. Smoking pot can often have an effect on blood sugar levels for those with diabetes and it can also help reduce ocular pressure for people who suffer with glaucoma. We all know of hemp’s ability to reduce nausea and smoking this substance will often help combat the pain associated with many medical conditions. Even simply smoking a good indica strain does tend to make a person relax, which in itself can be quite beneficial. Smoking pot can help reduce the symptoms of many conditions such as MS and is often very beneficial to those with spasmodic conditions. There is no shortage of evidence which clearly shows that even smoking hemp can do much to help the well-being of countless people worldwide. But, from my point of view, why just reduce the symptoms when a cure or much better control for the problem may be possible if the medicine is taken properly in the form of an oil?

There is little comparison between smoking hemp and ingesting hemp oil. Smoking is the least effective method of using hemp as a medicine. The healing power of hemp is magnified many times when the concentrated essential oil of the hemp plant is produced. If you want to see the real medicinal magic in this plant, start ingesting high-grade hemp oil. When one starts ingesting the raw, unburned THC and its associated cannabinoids, medical miracles are often the result.” Rick Simpson, Nature’s Answer for Cancer

The email reply from Alex Berenson I got this morning was that he stated the Rick Simpson Oil is snake oil, the testimonials of people using Cannabis Oil to cure Diabetes, Cancer and etc are lies and that Medical Cannabis or Cannabis Oil is of limited value and he does not want to debate it.

Good work, Alex. You’ve shown that Berenson is easily provoked into making stupid comments.

Apparently, Mr. Berenson, who now sees himself as someone qualified to practice medicine without a license, missed the following bit of critical medical information:

THE MAJORITY—AROUND 80 PERCENT—OF MEDICAL ONCOLOGISTS said they discuss medical marijuana with patients, according to a study published May 10 in theJournal of Clinical Oncologybased on a survey of U.S. oncologists. Nearly half said they had recommended medical marijuana clinically in the past year. But despite this openness, around 70 percent of medical oncologists reported they don’t feel they know enough to make recommendations surrounding medical marijuana use. […]

Use of the term “snake oil” to describe a cannabinoid condensate such as Simpson’s Oil is entirely inappropriate. It’s the sort of thing prohib Kevin Sabet would say.

Oncologists have obviously decided that cannabinoids have a strong probability of being an effective cancer treatment for a wide range of cancers and patients, while exposing the patient to no harmful side effects as some anti-cancer drugs do. The decision to medicate won’t be up to ersatz doctor Alex Berenson, whose writing and behavior is a stunning example of the Dunning-Kruger effect.

It would be great if you could post the entire content of Mr. Berenson’s email. It’s hard evidence he’s full of it.

Berenson has no more interest in truth than Sabet. They haven’t rode the Gravytrain this long by informing the people with facts. If the FDA hasn’t tested it, it is not medicinal. That is the bottomline of their argument. Arbitrarily and Capriciously, politically placing it as a Schedule#1 status also indicates it has no medicinal value and therefore not acceptable to receive tax dollars for research. Science be damned, or rather buried. Don’t confuse the situation with reality or actual people’s testimonies. You’ve been around long enough to know they have no morals, ethics or scruples.

As for “toking” Mr_Alex. It is a Preventative, an expectorant to ward off the future need of Simpson’s Oil. Opening smaller capillaries in the lungs and brain that oil can’t reach. So comparing it to oil or vapes seems more of a one up competition. If your ECS is saturated by toking or oil, that is the medicine. Toking will get into the system faster than digesting. I’ve never tried Simpson’s Oil and haven’t had a cold since 1969.

Mr_Alex, first off, my kudos; engaging prohibitionists has always caused me no small degree of pathos when you realize they believe that tautology is a substitute for reasoning. They endlessly repeat their irrational canto regarding the need for maintaining cannabis prohibition as if it were a magical incantation to ward off evil spirits. It’s quite irritating, but the irritation turns to horror when you realize such people can vote.

As anyone who has ever tried will tell you, no amount of factual information can sway a prohibitionist into questioning their faith…for that is exactly what you are doing.

Shorn of labyrinthine complexities, to question the rationale of prohibition is to engage in questioning everything they hold dear to themselves, challenging not only their world-view but their very own raison d’être, their entire reason for existence, itself.

They see themselves as modern-day Horatiuses at the bridge, defending all that is sacred from all that’s unholy, whose see issues such as ending cannabis prohibition as being part of the war of (superhero echo chamber voice effect) GOOOOOD versus EEEEEVILLLLL. And, of course, they believe themselves to be wearing the ‘white hats’. If that seems to be dismissively cartoonish, well, it models much of their thinking.

I am always reminded that the history of every prohibition shows that that religious fanatics can always be found walking point for them. And also, let us not forget that the secular, so-called ‘progressive’ version of said religious fanatics can also be found in the vanguard of any prohibition, due to their conceit of ‘knowing better’ than those they seek to control; Professor Whitebread’s US who seek to control THEM. Both sorts have ‘renounced the use of reason’, and to argue with such is pointless.

So, great job in trying to be the rational ‘adult in the room’, but in the end it will come down to an ever growing demographic (cannabis consumers) that crosses nearly all other demographics manifesting its power by force via the ballot box. We don’t really need to waste effort in engaging them, now. Time and numbers are on our side.

Both Kevin Sabet and Alex Berenson have rediculed the idea of Cannabis Oil being used on serious health problems like Cancer, Diabetes, Obesity, Heart Disease and etc when it has been done by the Ancient Chinese during the Han to Ming and Qing Dynasties in Ancient China. I provoked Alex Berenson into those comments because he had to be challenged over it. Kevin Sabet in the past has been given the chance to debate Professor Raphael Mechoulam from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Instead not only did Kevin Sabet turn it down, he basically said that Raphael Mechoulam’s research is based on Snake Oil. The same offer was offered to Alex Berenson as well but he also said the same thing as Kevin Sabet

Over Exposure to Both Cultist’ Kevin Sabet and Alex Berenson produce a reaction. It usually develops 12 to 48 hours after exposure and lasts two to three decades. The severity of the rash depends on the amount of exposure that gets under your skin. A section with more exposure on it may develop a rash sooner. Avoid direct contact with the propagandist’ to be safe.

“It’s a technique to break down the personality. It’s a fascist therapy that makes the person totally outer-directed and dependent on the group. Then they can build up a new personality that isn’t drug oriented.”

Prohibition has been selling Snake Oil to the rubes for 100 years.
Kevvie’s use of the term to smear opponents of his views is obviously “projection.”
Kevvie, you’re unwell, maybe you should try some Simpson Oil? Might help with the weight problem too.

January 25, 2019 — Paranoia is associated with regular tobacco smoking in adolescents after accounting for other factors like cannabis use, sleep disturbances and stressful life events, reports a study recently published in the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (JAACAP). The study also provides novel insights about the underlying causes of the association.

The authors found that the co-occurrence of paranoia with tobacco use was largely explained by genetic influences. Similar results for other types of psychotic experiences were also reported, including having hallucinations and disorganized thinking, which were also associated with tobacco use in teenagers.

“While the links between drugs such as cannabis, paranoia and hallucinations have been reported before, much less is known about the relationship between tobacco use and mental health problems,” said senior author Angelica Ronald, Professor of Psychology and Genetics at Birkbeck, University of London, UK. “In particular, we do not really know why tobacco use and mental health problems often co-occur.

“In these new findings from our lab, we show that using tobacco is to some degree heritable and that some of the same genetic influences on using tobacco also play a role in experiences such as feeling paranoid. It will be exciting to pursue this finding further to unpack the mechanisms that lead to this association.” […]

Alex Berenson bets heavily on a 1987 paper attempting to unravel the chicken-or-egg question of which came first, the psychosis or the cannabis.

If a genetic component prompting psychosis is the culprit, then the use of marijuana becomes irrelevant to those who don’t have the same gene morphology. The existence of such a gene in Berenson’s discussions is postulated but never mentioned:

Sven Andréasson’s 1987 paper in the Lancet moved the relationship between cannabis and mental illness out of the realm of Reefer Madness. Psychiatrists and researchers had to take seriously the possibility that marijuana could cause schizophrenia. But possibility isn’t fact. Andréasson had designed his study carefully. He had shown men who reported smoking cannabis developed the disease more often, and the more they smoked the higher the risk. That association might mean the drug caused psychosis. Then again, it might not. Other possibilities still existed. Skeptics offered four competing theories. In rough order of likelihood:

First, that the same genes that caused people to develop psychotic illnesses also encouraged them to use cannabis heavily. In that case, even though marijuana use often preceded or accompanied schizophrenia, it would not be causal. People would become schizophrenic for genetic reasons whether or not they used. […]

It turns out such a gene likely exists. It was discussed in a research paper in 2012, but additional investigation of the discovery was not followed up:

Philadelphia, PA, November 14, 2012 — The ability of cannabis to produce psychosis has long been an important public health concern. This concern is growing in importance as there is emerging data that cannabis exposure during adolescence may increase the risk of developing schizophrenia, a serious psychotic disorder. Further, with the advent of medical marijuana, a new group of people with uncertain psychosis risk may be exposed to cannabis.

For these reasons, it would be valuable if a biological test could be developed that predicted the risk for developing cannabis psychosis. This test could be used to advise people who abuse cannabis or to inform marijuana-prescribing decisions by physicians.

Recent research has implicated a variation in the gene that codes for a protein called RAC-alpha serine/threonine-protein kinase (Akt1) in the risk for cannabis psychosis. However, independent verification of these findings is critical for genetic associations with complex genetic traits, like cannabis-related psychosis, because these findings are notoriously difficult to replicate. […]

Led by first author Dr. Marta Di Forti at King’s College London’s Institute of Psychiatry, genetic researchers carried out a case control study to investigate variation in the AKT1 gene and cannabis use in increasing the risk of psychosis.

Di Forti said, “We studied the AKT1 gene as this is involved in dopamine signaling which is known to be abnormal in psychosis. Our sample comprised 489 patients with their first episode of psychosis and 278 healthy controls.”

They performed genotyping on all volunteers, and assessed their use of cannabis. They found that AKT1 genotype influences the risk of psychotic disorders in cannabis users, which confirmed the prior report.

“We found that cannabis users who carry a particular variant in the AKT1 gene had a two-fold increased probability of a psychotic disorder and this increased up to seven-fold if they used cannabis daily,” explained the authors. “Our findings help to explain why one cannabis user develops psychosis while his friends continue smoking without problems.”

“While the AKT1 genotype does not rise to the level of a clinically useful test of the risk for cannabis psychosis, it does show that this source of psychosis risk has a genetic underpinning,” commented Dr. John Krystal, Editor of Biological Psychiatry. “This advance also points to cellular signaling mechanisms mediated by AKT1 as being relevant to the biology of cannabis psychosis. This may suggest research directions for novel therapeutics for cannabis psychosis.” […]

Mr Berenson does not reference the King’s College AKT1 gene study. No mention is made of the AKT1 gene anywhere in the book, nor the name Dr John Krystal. Genetics is discussed in relationship to schizophrenia in only six short sections of the work. Despite this, “Sir Robin MacGregor Murray and Dr. Marta Di Forti (one of the authors in 2012)—a husband-and-wife team who live in London and are two of the world’s leading experts on cannabis and psychosis,” both from King’s College, are given attention, along with some criticism certain King’s College researchers received from the marijuana lobbies.

Alex Berenson failed to examine or discuss the one study that could prove him and his wife wrong about cannabis leading to psychosis and violence. His term paper gets an “F”.

A rebuttal of this magnitude appearing in The Nation is a sign of bad things to come. Alex Berenson may have trashed his entire writing career due to an ill-advised attempt to spoof the public about cannabis. Imitators take note: no one is going to read your new spy novel if you’re a prohibitch.